The Black Republican

I strongly suggest this piece by Steve LeBlanc, AP as "Recommended Reading".

Ah ha! I knew the reports of how well that movie, (whose name was stolen from a Ray Bradbury title), was doing were false. How else to explain this Rueter's Headline:

U.S. doughnut sales continue to slide

So it does take record sales to support Moore's pastry habit!

This is a copy of a FULL PAGE AD taken out by the Iraqi people in USAToday and other national newspapers. Our response as a nation should be... "You're welcome... now earn this!"

Every Wednesday we ask our readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign if they haven't done so already. We can't think of any better time to make this call this week thank in this post. If you have volunteered and donated, then get a friend to join you, and both work to improve relations with the greater black community.

If you're a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesday simply by putting up a post like this every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the president's re-election campaign. And don't forget to e-mail PoliPundit so that you can be added to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which is part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

I strongly suggest this piece by Jon Kyl as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Paul Crespo as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Terence Jeffrey as "Recommended Reading".

In a post from last week, Scott Wickham sounds some themes appropriate for the moment.

There are clear policy choices in this election that will affect lives of the majority of black Americans, in this election the republican party, Bush in particular, has more to offer us than the democrats. Unfortunately we will not be able to benefit from them unless we vote for Bush in 2004. Bush has stood by his supporters again and again, those who don't support him get ignored. The majority of black America can not afford to be ignored by the government.

There is ONE reason that is always brought up to condemn Bush when I suggest that blacks should vote for Bush. That is of course his stand against affirmative action. Bush like the majority of Americans don't support affirmative action. I am sure I and many of my friends have benefited from it, so I personally support it.

Unfortunately its an idea who's time has past.

I was describing to Steve just this morning (okay, yesterday morning...) how there are some people of the opposing political philosophy with whom I feel no real aggravation. It's actually closer to exasperation, and that's a big difference in my book. For these particular people, their perspective coupled with their essential goodness causes them (IMHO) to misunderstand that my contrary perspective does not mean I'm essentially evil (or at least "inherently wrong"). I believe in these people and their honest and well-meaning conviction of their positions. My hope and love for them rides on the belief that they are caught in a doctrine that has lied to them and misled them about me and what I believe, and that there's always hope I can work with them and occasionally sway them to agree with my side of an issue. This also causes my mind such grief that I almost think I could bend spoons with my despair.

But tonight I see that there is a corollary to this phenomenon, and despite 1-1/2 years of blogging, I'm suprised that this is the first time I truly understand this. There are other people - people who adhere to a philosophy very similar to my own - who cannot bring themselves to believe that I am on their side. Or perhaps, for reasons of their own, they just cannot allow themselves to be affiliated with a name I wear with unabashed pride, as a sign of that philosophy we share. While the first phenomenon I described is akin to exasperation, this one is closer to unrequited love: you can see the goodness in each other, and care for each other, but the other side isn't quite capable or willing to qualify it in the same way you are. That's more than puzzling - it hurts sometimes, and there's not much you can do about it.

Ambra Nykol brings this into focus where my outreach to the black community is concerned.

I grew up in a home with Christian Democrat parents. I couldn't even explain that one to you if I tried (and I will). However, when asked at one point by my high school history teacher about my family's political affiliation, without hesitation, I answered, "We tend to vote for Democrats because although we are against many of the things for which Democrats stand, we think the racial issues supercede the morality issues." At the time I don't think I understood what I was saying, but even now, I couldn't agree with that statement less.

A wise man, caught in a time when he had a terrifying difference of opinion with his politcal rivals, once tried to reach out to them and show them that the ideals they shared far outweighed the differences that separated them.

We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained, it must not break, our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battle-field and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.

This impression feeds off itself, causing our party to become more and more white. This is not proof in itself that Republicans are racist. Yet we continue to be portrayed as such, and this causes most of us to become disillusioned to the hope of ever being proved otherwise. That blacks who realize they don't share the radical socialist philosophies of today's Democratic Party have a hard time passing the gut-check and becoming Republicans isn't surprising for the exact same reason, but in reverse.

Honest Abe said it himself, "We are not enemies, but friends." We share many values and our party was the political home for many blacks for almost a century - for most blacks for most of that century. You don't have to be satisfied with the half a loaf the Democrats promise and never deliver. Prominent Republicans like Powell, Rice, Paige, Thomas, and Elder can tell you you have no more to fear from us than from them.

On the contrary, the longer we resist balancing out this equation, the greater the chance you will get nothing from the allegiance they've come to expect from you. And the longer we resist balancing out this equation, the less those despirited Republicans will expect they'll need to listen to black voices during debate. The longer it takes for the two of us to embrace our common heritage and our common future, the greater racism will fester on both sides.

UPDATE: Y'know, I read over this, and I get the distinct impression I might just be stepping over a line, especially with all these "you's" and "we's". I'm sounding especially preachy, perhaps.

Then again, another quote comes to mind:

Wait, hold on here. Is this a barbershop? Is this a barbershop? If we can't talk straight in a barbershop, then where can we talk straight? We can't talk straight nowhere else. You know, this ain't nothin' but healthy conversation, that's all.

A friend once complained that she didn't like two pictures of Mr. Lincoln on the masthead. Eddie's just given me a better idea for one of them.

UPDATE II: Ambra seems to have confused even herself in the process of writing her posts. The quote above has already been corrected, but with the morning light I see I went off in a direction that isn't exactly derivative of her post. I guess in some instances I'm talking to the Democrats she is talking about, and in others I'm talking to the conservatives like her who haven't yet decided what comes after being a former Democrat.

Well, in any event I got a barberpole out of it. And I'm anxiously awaiting the next installment.

I guess you should put me into the third class of Catholics according to the Dallas Morning News' editorial excoriating the Church for the sex abuse scandal: I feel powerless. But here's a news flash for you: I always have. What else is new? That's part of being Catholic.

You may be asking, "The sex abuse scandal?" Yes, it's still alive.

In the Romanesque version of the Abu Ghraib story, the abuse goes on and the press is all too delighted to tell us about it. It smells like 1974 all over again... not content to come close to destroying the American Presidency, the press sets its sights on the papal throne.

Don't get me wrong, it's heinous what some priests have done, and it is compounded by the apparent complicity of certain bishops. But the press isn't in this for Truth alone. Nowhere in the editorial does it even suggest that some of these men might not be guilty - even though some of them haven't even had a trial yet. In the midst of a furor over wrongful prosecutions despite DNA evidence proving otherwise, you'd think some people carrying on a crusade for Truth might consider that at least some of the adults pointing the finger of blame for their screwed up lives might just happen to be lying about what happened five, ten and twenty years ago. And we're still talking about a disgraceful minority of the priests and bishops.

That said, many if not most of these cases are not in doubt, and many times bishops have shuttled priests from parish to parish despite knowing full well what they have done. The problems need to be rooted out and excised from Mother Church. But you're not going to get lay Catholics who remain active in the Church to foment a revolution from within. We're the ones who respect and adore the Church for taking hundreds of years to come to a conclusion about something, despite the pressure of a modern age that demands things get done yesterday.

The church will heal, but don't expect it on your timetable. You want "fast"... we'll give you fasting.

UPDATE: Robert Novak offers some (as usual) pessimistic words about freedom of speech in churches.

Star Parker, like Juan Williams before her, makes the case for playing for the black vote by going into black churches.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie has been touring the country with boxing promoter Don King addressing black businessmen in the inner cities. But is this really the best way to reach black voters? Less than 3 percent of blacks own businesses and most of these are mom-and-pop operations with revenues of less than $150,000 per year.

The way to reach blacks is through the black church. Starbucks knows this. Its recent entry into the inner cities has been orchestrated through churches.

Nationwide, there are 65,000 black churches, with more than 20 million members and $50 billion in revenues. Republicans need to build on this base, already with Bush on social issues, and help blacks make the logical connection between their faith and the importance of individual freedom and personal responsibility.

PLEASE call the Bush campaign, email the RNC, talk to every Republican officeholder you know and tell them all to get the message to Karl Rove and the President to listen to Star Parker and Juan Williams. Let's take our case to the people directly by going into the black churches.

I strongly suggest this piece by Larry L. Eastland as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Terry L. Heaton as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Ambra Nykol as "Recommended Reading".

Well, now. Bush & Co. seem to have gone off and ruined David's work on his fancy countdown clock.

Iraq became a sovereign country on Monday, 15 months after the United States led a coalition to oust Saddam Hussein from power and two days before the June 30 deadline for control to be turned over to the interim Iraqi government.

"This is a historical day," Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi (search) said. "We feel we are capable of controlling the security situation."

In a swearing-in ceremony, the coalition officially transferred power to the new Iraqi government.

I strongly suggest this piece by Michael Barone as "Recommended Reading".

I fear I might be doing Dana a disservice by preaching my extended-length anti-(liberal-)Catholic sermons against government waste over at Note-It Posts, but commenter Kirk has proven to be a true irritant for me. In case my religious rantings are a bother for her, here's a thread where she can direct Kirk for all the fisking he desires.

There is this Egyptian guy over in Judea who sometimes wants us to believe he is powerless to stop the Islamofacists from trying to finish what the National Socialists aspired to during WW II, the extermination of all of Jewish heritage.

Funny thing now, is that he is talking about a truce during this summer's Olympics, this man that once put a sponsor of the Munich Olympic terror attack into a position of power in Palestine, he wants a truce this year? If this man can get his side to stop their terror for a few weeks, why not for all time? I think it is time to press Mr. Yassir Arafat once again. He can give a truce? I say we should, in poker terms now, put him all in. If he can stop it for awhile, he must stop it all together, or he is the next to go.

So, what do you say slick? Are you bluffing, or are you ready to play for all of your chips?

UPDATE: Allah has the perfect complement to this article. - Chris

Michele at A Small Victory notes a political effect on our military's ability to fight that is predictable only in that it is too absurd to not happen in these times. Imagine this: two members of the Congress do not want our troops to kill the enemy with bullets purchased from Israel!

Apparently, our domestic sources for ammunition can not keep pace with the demand, so the DoD imported rounds from a Jewish manufacturer. Now, for fear of offending the maniacal murderous dead-enders masquerading as religious zealots who wish to end our existence, members of our goverment want those rounds to be expended only on the practice range. Every day it gets harder to tell who is on our side, and who is against us.

This comment was too rich to not share:

"Okay, okay. I've already mentioned this elsewhere, but it's like a scene from 'Aliens'. The Marines are down under the cooling towers, in the very heart of Alien country. The loser Lt. has the SgtMaj. collect all the rounds, worried that one stray shot could set off a small thermo nuclear reaction. A disgusted grunt asks: 'What are we supposed to use? Harsh language?'" - tree hugging sister

The Belmont Club has two posts today that absolutely skewer the news media's coverage of the military's successes in Iraq, not to mention some special attention for Ted Koppel and Michael Moore. (Hat trick!)

In information also gleaned from Strategy Page, Zarqawi's attacks in recent days don't seem to be doing much good. They're just pissing off the decent Iraqis who are doing the most dying, and both they and the Americans are counting down the hours when we start being the invited guests of the new Iraqi government.

"The idea is that you argue in the daytime and then you have a drink together at night. But there's a difference when you essentially accuse a Vice-President of corruption, and then you slap him on the back and smile. I think that deserves a riposte, including a suggestion of how the Senator might entertain himself."
 - Charles Krauthammer, describing the disingenuous gregarity of U.S. Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), and Vice President Cheney's recent off-color suggestion on the Senate floor in response

EDIT: As Major Garret of Fox News insinuated but didn't spell out, the fellow who adorns our masthead knows a thing or two about political rivalry. One of his confidants during the Civil War, Charles Sumner, was beaten almost to death with a cane right on the Senate floor during debate. And as early as 1836, Honest Abe was known to finish some "discussions" with a certain fellow legislator from Illinois (named Stephen Douglas) by wrestling with him in the dirt.

I strongly suggest this piece by Victor Davis Hanson as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Associated Press as "Recommended Reading".

Has anyone else noticed the increased use of the big 500lb bombs by our forces recently? Two separate and specific attacks that I count. And has anyone else picked up on the fact that General Kimmitt, in a departure from his traditional "we'll let you know in a few weeks what the after actions report says" or "we believe the strikes were successful, but we'll have to get more intel" type statements, his pronouncements about these recent strikes have been absolute!? I saw the daily press conference the day of the first bombing and the change in General Kimmitt's demeanor was striking... he was absolutely positive that the bombing was successful! And this only hours after the bombing had occurred! My spidy sense began tingling!

"All of our post-strike intelligence continues to confirm that this was a safehouse with significant amounts of ammunition stored there," Kimmitt said. "I will say more accurately that these were key personnel in the Zarqawi network."

As you should know from my frequent mentions of it, I'm currently reading Carl Sandburg's two-part biography of Abraham Lincoln. Much to my suprise, I found when Sandburg described Lincoln's first Innaguration Day, he confirmed something James Taranto has pointed out many times (for an example, look in his columns for for the frequent "Homelessness Rediscovery Watch" entries):

March 4 dawned with pleasant weather that later turned bleak and chilly for the 25,000 strangers roving Washington. With hotels and rooming houses overcrowded, hundreds had slept on the porches of public buildings and on street sidewalks.

Here at TBR, we recently had a discussion with a reader who insisted that our military has created a prison system for captive enemies that is comparable to the old Soviet Gulags. I believe that we won the argument, and that the claim made by upyernoz was ridiculous. The hyperbole in his charge is similar to that which we hear often lately, wherein the word worst is tossed about with ease, and the names of the most infamous people, places and actions of the twentieth century are conjured up to defame contemporary people, places and actions.

Bret Stephens' Just Like Stalingrad explains why using Hitler, Gulags, Holocaust, worst economy, international failure, worst President, etcetera to describe today's people and events is not only incorrect, but also damages the language.

So here is one aspect of this insanity: no sense of proportion. For Mr. Blumenthal, Fallujah isn't merely like Stalingrad. It may as well be Stalingrad, just as Guantanamo may as well be Lefertovo and Abu Ghraib may as well be Buchenwald, and Mr. Bush may as well be Hitler and Hoover combined, and Iraq may as well be Vietnam and Bill Clinton may as well be Franklin Roosevelt.

The absence of proportion stems, in turn, from a problem of perspective. If you have no idea where you stand in relation to certain objects, then an elephant may seem as small as a fly and a fly may seem as large as an elephant. Similarly, Mr. Blumenthal can compare the American detention infrastructure to the Gulag archipelago only if he has no concept of the actual size of things. And he can have no concept of the size of things because he neither knows enough about them nor where he stands in relation to them. What is the vantage point from which Mr. Blumenthal observes the world? It is one where Fallujah is "Stalingrad-like." How does one manage to see the world this way? By standing too close to Fallujah and too far from Stalingrad. By being consumed by the present. By losing not just the sense, but the possibility, of judgment.

Stay away from me - I seem to have caught a vicious strain of leprosy that's eating my brain from inside-out. What causes me to think this? I disagree with a conservative, and agree with a Jesuit.

(A)ccording to Louis Giovino, a spokesman for the conservative Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights.... South Park made Life of Brian "look like a playground." The animated series, where almost everyone is Catholic, "is very vicious in its satire toward most religions."

Other Catholic observers disagree.

"In the midst of all this gross-out, puerile humor are flashes of insight into the religious condition," says the Rev. James Martin, associate editor and culture critic of America magazine, the national Catholic weekly. The show is subversive, he says, because it uses humor to lead people to a serious consideration of faith and theology.

UPDATE: Forgot the hat tip to Relapsed Catholic.

Back when I was a lad in the Garden of America we heard this phrase over and over again. And it ended: "...the more they take."

(Governor) McGreevey is spending so much so fast that he also plans to borrow at least $1.5 billion in addition to the tax increases. It will be the third consecutive year that New Jersey has resorted to debt bonds to cover ongoing operations, and Moody's is now threatening to downgrade the state's credit rating.

I strongly suggest this piece by James Piereson as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Stuart Taylor as "Recommended Reading".

Ironic that Rick would post about the problems with electronic voting, as this was on my mind yesterday as well. There is a way to get around all these problems we've been seeing with voting systems: public voting.

What few people realize is that back in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was no such thing as a secret ballot. I never really thought about it until I read an account of an election in the book I'm currently reading, Carl Sandburg's Abraham Lincoln. The registrar would stand at a podium in a meeting hall with the whole town (or division thereof in big cities, I suppose) and call the roll of names in his book. As each name was called, the voter was required to stand and state who he was voting for in each office. Historians are able to go back and tell us exactly who Lincoln voted for in each contest he voted in by reading the notations in that book.

As indicated in the Wikipedia entry, secret ballots were invented to prevent intimidation. While I can imagine that was necessary as we approached the end of the 19th century and through most of the 20th, I'm wondering if we really need the secret ballot anymore. Bloggers are a good example of one group of Americans who don't seem at all inhibited in telling us what they think or who they're voting for, and with the popularity of the medium I'm not sure we're special among Americans in that regard.

Who would still feel intimidated and require a secret ballot? Regardless of your politics - conservative, liberal, Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian - I'm not sure I could appreciate someone voting who is too timid to stand and defend their principles.

Especially during wartime, we're told men are dying for our right to vote. Are they dying so you can hide behind that secret ballot? Would you be willing to stake your life on that vote, the way they are? Would you really have to?

Usually "Race and Prejudice" deals with the oft-discussed American "minorities" (you know, those small groups that when combined outnumber pasty white guys like me). But Dennis Prager points out that today the most prominent "minority" group in the world is: Americans. And like self-loathing bigots everywhere, some of the worst offenders are American themselves.

There are many ways to philosophically divide Americans. Liberal-conservative and religious-secular are two obvious ways. But there is another, no less significant, division: Those who are ashamed of America for being hated and those who wear this hatred as a badge of honor.... Either America is evil and hatred of it is merited, or America is a decent country and the haters are evil. The correct explanation is so obvious that only one who already hates America or who is simply morally confused would choose the first.

I don't make a habit of posting articles saying something is a "must-read". I figure if you're here, you probably know that I'm blogging to point out something that's pretty important to me. I've even got a whole category just for "Recommended Reading" that's posted prominently nearby. But there are times when something can't be promoted enough.

Read Debra Burlingame's excellent op-ed today in The Wall Street Journal. It's a must-read.

I strongly suggest this piece by Alan Bromley as "Recommended Reading".

With the election nearing it is worth noting that the move away from paper ballots to computerized voting has its faults.

The State of Maryland was... to buy and install touch-screen computer voting machines... the state has now ordered a review of the purchase because... the machines are essentially junk."

Hundreds of computer scientists say electronic touchscreen voting machines could allow for massive election fraud.

Well, Florida knows what to do: recount. In fact, that was required by law. Trouble was, the machines didn't create any kind of paper trail.

The Air Force is paying for a 2-day workshop at the American Film Institute in which scientists can catch a glimpse of working in the world of films. The workshop is designed to improve the accuracy of the way science is presented in movies and, by portraying scientists positively, to encourage young people to enter science.

Tonight (10pm EST) The History Channel airs a piece on Lincoln. The provocative ads for the show question whether the photos of Lincoln are real, and whether he grew up in a log cabin. I suspect the photos they refer to are those that purportably show him as a young man. I have visited his Kentucky birthplace many times, and the cabin on display is not presented as, verifiably, the home the Lincoln's owned. But, it is regarded as typical of that period, so I will be interested to see what they say on that matter.

Disgraced former President W. J. B. Clinton is claiming that upon leaving office one of his great disappointments was not apprehending Osama Bin Laden. Can you say revisionist history? If that was such an imperative then, as he now suggests, why did he not accept the offers that would have accomplished the deed (Gorelick's Wall)? And why did he keep his desire secret from the American people? I don't recall that national address wherein Clinton told us that OBL was enemy #1; was Clinton operating the most secret government ever?

I strongly suggest this piece by Newt Gingrich as "Recommended Reading".

In a welcome move:

The Kentucky Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a fetus is a person as long as it is 'viable'.

Someone recently suggested to me that Rudy Giuliani should replace Dick Cheney on the Republican ticket, and I said I thought it was a wonderful idea. I still think that, because now that the Catholic bishops are starting to show some backbone, Rudy could have an excellent excuse for changing his stance on abortion to fit in with mainstream conservatism.

But Sidney Zion (not exactly a conservative booster) has a better idea.

Personality-wise and in terms of displayed leadership, I'm still rooting for Rudy. But the fact is, for all his ego-driven idiosyncrasies, media-darling McCain is already a pro-life mainstream conservative. In fact, lately McCain has been getting the most face-time for criticizing the President for not holding down spending. I think the press has been so intent on getting the senator to say bad things about the President, they haven't noticed they're promoting a conservative agenda in the process.

I don't like to think of eventually handing the reigns of the party over a potentially unstable McCain, but the cries of betrayal we'd hear from the press sure make it tempting.

Newsweek's April 07, 2003 edition famously included the observation above as the "Conventional Wisdom" regarding Vice-President Dick Cheney's statement on Meet the Press that "We will be greeted as liberators."

Smell some rose petals here.

I strongly suggest this piece by Daniel Henninger as "Recommended Reading".

Bad enough that a German orchestra prefers to play La Marseillaise over Die Internationale.

I strongly suggest this piece by The Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I'm tempted to move to St. Louis.

Thinking the two current occupants looked a little lonely, I went looking for appropriate links to add to our new St. Blog's blogroll. I found a quite entertaining site by Kathy Shaidle, Relapsed Catholic.

At one point on her current front page, Kathy comments that she'd changed her position on abortion - but then fails to say from what to what. Naturally, I went diving through the archives to satisfy my curiosity, and came up with this gem. Make sure to read the linked commentaries by some of her friends - they're dated by the onward march of the campaign, but still quite insightful and entertaining.

Actor Michael Moriarty of Law & Order fame (among other things) apparently had a revelation a few years back.

What I thought would be our new Camelot ended up as "Come-a-lot" and then turned out to really be "Lie-a-lot."

Since former President Clinton treated an oath before God as if it were a promise to Santa Claus, I've taken the Clinton St. Nick's name literally. The God I was raised to believe in is a kind of Santa Claus. He's not the terminator portrayed in the Old Testament because the jolly ole man I know is very slow to anger. If we're reasonably nice and not naughty, He rewards us. However, if you push Him by lying to Him, by using His name for sin and vanity, and by making it internationally fashionable for the entire human race to do the same, well, He tends to get a little riled.

I strongly suggest this piece by Columbia Daily Tribune as "Recommended Reading".

At the time I signed on I was intending to tell the tale of two lies; the television news just brought to light a third.

Lie number one- Aretha Franklin sang the National Anthem at the NBA game Tueday night. While the song is considered to be a tough one to sing, can you (I can't) imagine another singer who is more qualified to pull it off live than the First Lady of Soul? So, why then did she lip-sync the song? Sorry my dear, but you looked a fool as your attempt to mouth the words in time was terrible, I listened, but I could not watch.

Lie number two- Howard Dean is now claiming that "The Scream" never happened, he says he never screamed, we are expected to believe him now, not our eyes and ears then. Is there a possibility that Gov. Dean is an NBA fan, that he saw Aretha and decided that he could claim that while his mouth moved, he produced no sound? Look for the conspiraciy theorists to explain the sound as a second voice-man on the grassy knoll.

Lie number three- The Earth Liberation Front is an evironmentally conscious group. Evidence? They just
claimed credit (on their website, no less)for a lumberyard fire in Utah.

Their specious reasons for such action:

"Stock Building Supply in WJ, Utah was targeted because it has ignored several warnings to repair their forklifts. the forklifts in which they operate every day put out far more pollutants than average disesel engines.

They are destroying the ozone and posing a serious health risk to nearby humans and living animals. if the consequences of early monday morning are what it takes to bring their negligence to the attention of the media and the people of the world, then it is well worth it and we will continue in our mission to stop large companies from destroying the environment.

If you build it we will burn it! stop destroying mother earth."

I am sure that they started the blaze in organic fashion, two sticks rubbed together? Surely they didn't use a fossil fuel filled Zippo.

Bonus: Scientific Poll Results

Based on these examples I conclude that two out of three lies are the work of IDIOTS! I reserve the right to revise that figure upwards.

I'm with Michelle on this one, at least as far as I'm very uncomfortable with The Wall Street Journal's apparent tactics.

The editorial recycles old claims that conservative opponents of illegal immigration are part of some cabal with radical environmentalists and pro-abortionists. Mark Krikorian of the Center for Immigration Studies effectively refuted those specious claims here. The smear tactic is positively Clintonesque.

I strongly suggest this piece by The New York Times as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Peggy Noonan as "Recommended Reading".

While I don't always know of what he speaks, Canadian matters, Colby Cosh is a favorite of mine on the web. Sometimes he provides a gem, and in this case it dovetails with the death of Reagan and Chris' criticism of Reason. There was time when the magazine had an interest in reasoning, a curiosity, and a desire to see the similarities in us all (bring back the old days); Reagan and Reason, circa 1975.

Ronald Reagan was not yet President when he sat for this interview. The questions were fair, the interviewer seemed genuinely interested in what Reagan had to say. Reagan did not pull any punches, telling exactly what he thought, even if that meant admitting that he had not thought a problem through well enough to offer a solution (yet).

"Well, if I answer that question then I’m answering that we should do away with our state universities and frankly I haven’t given enough thought to what could be a counter-system."

He illustrated his vision of the problem in the way only he could, in this case with a story.

"At first, there was a great opposition to most of the Federal revenues that are going to education on the part of many educators. Once the money was there, however, it was like the farmer who went into the woods and came back with the wagon loads of wild pigs. When they asked him how he had done it–they’d been wild for a hundred years–he said, "I built a fence and I put corn down and fed them, and they got used to eating the corn there, so l extended the fences’s sides and finally I had an enclosure and I corralled them." He said, "If I can get them to take food from me, I’ll own them." And this is what really happened with Federal aid to education. You know, the Federal Government could have done it differently if the Federal Government did not at the same time want control."

There is so much more in this article, tax hikes should require a 2/3 majority, what the role of government should be (to protect us from each other, but not from ourselves), prostitution as slavery, deregulation..........

I plan to return to this article time and again, I have copied it to my computer to make that easier, as I read I found quotes that will show up in my work for a long time to come.

Both James Taranto and Laura Ingraham featured a piece published in The New York Times today by Juan Williams. Williams, who is probably the liberal I'm most fond of simply because Brit Hume doesn't throttle him every Sunday (so he must be a nice guy), brought me near to tears when he suggested to Bush that he has an opportunity to break the black-vote monolith in the Democratic Party.

But the president has the opportunity to flip the script. With a direct appeal, President Bush could win at least 20 percent of the black vote — and the White House.

Anyone who knows me should realize that Republicans improving relationships with the black community isn't just a fond wish for me, but one of the founding reasons for this blog. We've had good ideas before, and not only is Juan restating these for us, he's inviting us in. This opportunity would be more important than the election itself if it weren't for the fact that it could very well be the key to success in November - and nothing would advance the cause of freeing blacks from the shackles of liberal pandering than a grateful Republican Party, who owe the election to their newfound friendships.

We must take up this opportunity, for it could give us the last surge of momentum we need - not just to retain the White House, but to finally grab the reigns of the culture away from the elites and return them to the people.

Every Wednesday I ask my readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign if they haven't done so already. And if you have volunteered and donated, then get a friend to join you, and both work to improve relations with the greater black community.

If you're a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesday simply by putting up a post like this every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the president's re-election campaign. And don't forget to e-mail PoliPundit so that you can be added to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which is part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

I strongly suggest this piece by Claudia Rosett as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Samuel P. Huntington as "Recommended Reading".

Maybe I haven't been paying attention closely enough. While I never thought Reason was The Weekly Standard, I also never thought it was Pravda. But in this article by Brian Doherty, conservatives are presented as being obsessed with world domination in a fashion right out of Howard Dean's worst nightmares, and David Frum is the very personification of The Boogie Man himself.

Did I merely misunderstand Reason's secret agenda, or has something there caused stupidity to break out all of a sudden?

Dean has something posted that cannot be described, only experienced.

I strongly suggest this piece by Lev Grossman, Time as "Recommended Reading".

Diggs is on fire about a group of career weasels... I mean "diplomats" who are endorsing the non-endorsement of a certain non-weasel. It all sounds so very nuanced to me.

I keep reading where this group wants Bush defeated, but they are not endorsing Kerry. So...who are they endorsing? Nader? It is exactly this type of statement from these types of people that has gotten us thirty years of feckless diplomacy.

Today is not only Flag Day, it marks fifty years since the words, "under God" were added to the Pledge of allegiance. The Supreme Court has ruled today on a challenge to the inclusion of those words into the Pledge. This Rueters story is so concise that I include it in its entirety.

"The U.S. Supreme Court dismissed on Monday a constitutional challenge to the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance recited by schoolchildren, without deciding the key church-state issue. The justices ruled that California atheist Michael Newdow lacked the legal right to bring the challenge in the first place. "We conclude that Newdow lacks standing," Justice John Paul Stevens declared in the opinion.

The ruling came down on the 50th anniversary of the addition of the words "under God" to the pledge. Congress adopted the June 14, 1954, law in an effort to distinguish America's religious values and heritage from those of communism, which is atheistic. "

This gives new meaning to the phrase, "no controlling legal authority".

I strongly suggest this piece by Matt Zemek as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Pete du Pont as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Peggy Noonan as "Recommended Reading".

Fly 'em if you got 'em.

For information on flag etiquette, the US Flag Code, etc., let me recommend that you visit US Flag Depot, Inc or, US History.org for more rules and history (you can also get flags for wallpaper or for printing at this site).

Interested in animated flags, quizzes, early flags, or what the Smithsonian Museum has to say on the subject? Links can be found on this Google search results page .

I strongly suggest this piece by Mark Steyn as "Recommended Reading".

I caught sight today of two blog articles that gave me hope about how things are going in Iraq. The funny thing is, they probably wouldn't appreciate the fact that I read their words as support.

The first is from Christopher Allbritton, a freelancer now working for TIME who first shipped himself to Iraq on donations from people visiting his website. He sounds like a True Believer in the Fourth Estate, and based solely on this post I think he hasn't quite learned to spin the way some in the liberal media think is 'proper reporting'. I've tried to pick a quote out as an example, but there's just so much there, I find it impossible to choose.

The other article is a letter from a retired military turned contractor included in a post at Joshua Marshall's Talking Points Memo. This guy talks just like some of the retired military "experts" we see on the cable channels all the time. Some of them are really experts in the Middle East, Special Forces, or Terrorism. Few know about all of them at the same time, without which their opinions are really suspect. All of them have egos so big they need reinforced shocks on their cars to get anywhere. I can think of nothing else that would cause a retired NCO to believe that troops in a war zone are incompetent just because they don't immediately recognize him as a peaceful Westerner as he approaches them at 70 miles an hour.

While I read these posts, I can't help but imagine that both these guys think they can tell us 'from experience' what's going on in Iraq because they're experiencing it. But their stories about the troops tell me that our men in the Sunni Triangle are taking good care of themselves and not trusting anyone - as they shouldn't. And Iraqis are good people being put through a stressful time because their country was run by madmen who forced us to destroy their country. War and reconstruction are an ugly business - no one should expect less.

Since neither man seems to specifically report from outside the Triangle, there's an inherent bias here in what they're experiencing. And yet, even there neither is projecting total doom for our cause. On the contrary, both insinuate that they wish for the mission to succeed... then they let their fears and prejudices (and egos) extend their warped opinions borne of anecdotal experience seen in microcosm to the entirety of the situation in Iraq when there is no evidence whatsoever supporting them.

Just to be sure I wasn't reading into this what I wanted to read, I asked friends with in-theater experience what they thought of these articles. One responded this way about the military contractor:

I'd threaten him too, if I was in 130 degree heat, changing my tire on my Humvee, and some dipshit from the CPA tried to pull his armored land yacht too close to my vehicle. Every time I hear a CPA guy complaining about the junior soldiers I cringe. The CPA guys have it pretty nice, the soldiers don't.

"...whenever the vicious portion of the population shall be permitted to gather... and burn churches, ravage and rob provision stores, throw printing presses into rivers, shoot editors, and hang and burn obnoxious persons at pleasure and with impunity; depend on it, this Government cannot last."
   - Abraham Lincoln, 1838, from his biography by Carl Sandburg

Our friend Doug found a Flash presentation that sounds so satirical, it's funny. What's even funnier is the guy who created it is apparently serious. But the host of the site where we're linking to is apparently not.

I strongly suggest this piece by Daniel Henninger as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by The Wall Street Journal as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Paul Wolfowitz as "Recommended Reading".

I strongly suggest this piece by Fred Barnes as "Recommended Reading".

Pardon my vanity, but I keep reading this back to myself and thinking that I've rarely been in such good form. Ronaldus Maximus brings out the best in me, I suppose - though I'm far more abrasive and not nearly so polite as Dutch.

(Italicized text is a from a comment to the previously linked post. My response is interspersed.)

--

hey, i read that other thread and i must honestly conclude that you have never had a serious long discussion with a liberal before.

How utterly self-absorbed. Of course I've had long discussions with liberals. How else could I have parsed my way through your rhetoric and found it so completely bereft of logic and common sense as to find out that I'm a conservative?

i see a lot of stereotyping about how the left "defines itself as dissent" but i have never thought that way and i don't think i have ever met anyone who does.

You've obviously been living under a rock. It's all around you, and has been since the 1960's. (Remember "turn on, tune in, drop out"?) In a decade closer to my own coming-of-age, our elders tried to tell my generation to "Just say No." Meanwhile, liberals told us there was no way we'd believe that, so Nike decided to agree with them and told us to "Just do it." Conformity most certainly hasn't been the byword in America for quite some time, and it certainly hasn't been peddled by the liberals.

don't you think your formulation is just a bit simplistic?

Actually, I thought it was refreshingly astute. I'd never heard anyone pose the idea quite that way before and thought I just might have had an original thought. We on the right - being Classical Liberals ourselves - actually prize the opportunity to think in new ways. And of course, rather than criticize simple ideas, we generally find those to be the most profound. As I recall, Thomas Jefferson had a few thoughts he considered so simple that he referred to them as being "self-evident". Paradoxically, those simple thoughts changed the world.

do you ever talk politics with someone who thinks differently than you just to understand where they are coming from?

How can I not? They control the media, the courts, and the school system. Anyone with a TV or a high school diploma begins as a liberal through this indoctrination and has to undergo extensive rehabilitation in order to think clearly again. It's unavoidable that a conservative will get wet as he fights to keep the tide back, and many times we're deluged.

I might add (I've been dying to take note of it) that I find it ironic that I have to point this out to someone who calls himself "upyernoz" and who has been so totally deprived of a well-ordered education that he has no clue where the Shift key is on the keyboard. Did you go to Harvard, perhaps?

why exactly do i have to list all the stuff i love about america with each response?

If you'd do it even occasionally, perhaps we could understand how you rationalize your persistent negativity.

there is no single "horribly wrong" point. where did that come from?

It came from that giant black hole where your love of country seems to be stuck.

america has always had both good and bad in it. it never was all good or all bad (or "horribly wrong"). it's more constructive to discuss individual decisions and decide whether they were bad or good than to talk about such ridiculous broad generalities. (are these questions serious? it's almost like a parody of the "why do you hate america?" joke. i honestly didn't think anyone took that seriously)

Oh, now this I find fascinating. So American History should only be discussed in terms of good and bad decisions, and you find no reason to discuss "broad generalities" that were "bad" (such as slavery, perhaps?) or "good" (such as personal liberty?) because doing so would be "ridiculous"? Is that what you're saying?

see above re: broad generalities. "worker's paradise"??? "unrepentant communist in our midst"???? are you reacting to anything i actually wrote, or just some weird characature of what someone who is anti-war would think?

I don't need to make you into a weird characature, I think you're doing a wonderful job with that yourself.

can you name one place where i have called myself a communist? are you reading what i am writing here? i'm not trying to put words in your mouth, why are you doing that to me?

Why... because it's fun, of course.

I told you were always welcome to post here, but unlike your own websites, I've never hallowed this place as being dedicated to 'constructive discourse'. This is primarily a place where I can get my frustrations out when I think I have something to say. I hope I'm making people who agree with me feel better, maybe even laugh on occasion. If I convert a few minds - hey, that's all gravy.

But to answer your question: no, I haven't seen you refer to yourself as a communist. But I have seen you disparage your country and its history, dishonor those who defend her by wearing a uniform, and compare both to an evil system of government that murdered tens of millions and enslaved hundreds of millions more, all while terrorizing the rest of the planet with the possibility of total destruction of our species. And all that without any evidence that remotely compares the two, primarily because the entire concept is an outright lie propagated by a political philosophy that favored that same enemy and their tactics.

this is getting tiresome. i never meant to imply that i thought you or anyone who disagrees with me is stupid. i'm sorry if i gave that impression. if i thought you were stupid, i wouldn't bother trying to argue with you. arguing (i believe) implies a certain amount of respect for the intelligence of the opponent, for it implies that i can convince you that i am right.

Wow. With just a little introspection, you could very well be onto something here. Can you imagine for just a second that the other side doesn't believe a word you say, and that when hearing these words the other side might believe that your rhetoric - being so close to that used by the aforementioned evil system of government - is actually trying to enslave them the same way the evil system of government enslaved those hundreds of millions I talked about earlier? Can you imagine how the other side just might react with hostility toward that rhetoric, fearing for their own existance?

In any event, please forgive us and our temerity. We really don't mean to tire you. What we mean to do is keep you occupied here entertaining us with your wickedly funny posts, so that you're not off somewhere else talking to someone who might believe you and vote for John Kerry.

--

This is it, folks. This is what we're dealing with. We can stand with George W. and the legacy of Ronald Reagan, telling our enemies we no longer intend to live with their nonsense and intend to destroy their dictatorial regimes and their backward culture of intolerance and oppression, or we can return to the negativity and close-mindedness of the leftist socialist Democrats.

Every Wednesday I ask my readers to volunteer and/or donate to the Bush campaign if they haven't done so already. And if you have volunteered and donated, then get a friend to join you so we can continue to prosecute the War on Terror, and defend America from the appeasers and apologists of the Left.

If you're a blogger, you can join Wictory Wednesday simply by putting up a post like this every Wednesday, asking your readers to volunteer and/or donate to the president's re-election campaign. And don't forget to e-mail PoliPundit so that you can be added to the Wictory Wednesday blogroll, which is part of the Wictory Wednesday post on all participating blogs:

Do you know why I am a conservative and Republican instead of the alternative? Well, technically, there are hundreds of specific reasons, but the best example I could give is just this: I would rather be seen in the company of these people than in the company of these people.

I guess that make me intolerant... right? ;-)